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2014
This dissertation examines Istanbul as a geographical and historical totality and focuses on four different and integral parts of this totality: its Ottoman past, its dalliances with modern planning attempts, the city’s death throes in the face of rabid industrialization efforts, and its first true real estate boom. These divergent parts are scrutinized through the relationship between the state and space. This work investigates the different modes a city takes under different configurations of a state composed of, but not limited to, cultural, ethnic, religious, class-based, formal, and spatial elements. By studying Istanbul alone, it is possible to gauge divergent trajectories of the production of space that the city takes. The changes in Istanbul’s state-spaces are studied in five stages: the first involves the urban theory that engendered my critical stance on Istanbul and the production of space and how revolutionary urbanism can be harnessed to a re-evaluation of a semiperipheral metropolis. The second part is related to an attempt in unraveling the early modern historical characteristics of the city and its overdetermining role in the formation of state mechanisms. The third part unearths the rupture that modernity instigated in the urban fabric and conjoining state institutions and mentalities that shaped the city. The fourth part focuses on the industrialization and population boom of the second part of the 20th century and locates the consequence of social developments in the urban space: the squatter settlements, the gecekondus. The fifth part grasps the cycles of boom and bust in the real estate investments in Istanbul and is concerned in the concrete production of space of the five decades since 1965. Amidst the interplay of various elements, the emergent middle class in Istanbul and its social and historical moorings in the urban built environment are revealed to be rooted in the erstwhile squatters, in the gecekondu areas.
This article explores the social history of İstanbul’s extra-mural urbanization during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It focuses on the Beyoğlu district, where the modernizing city emerged as a dense urban sprawl on what had been an area with rural characteristics well into the second half of the nineteenth century. The examination traces the main axis of development from the northern shores of the Golden Horn to the Taksim area, concentrating on the people who created and inhabited this nascent space. It delves into the formation of modern class structures and identifies migratory patterns in the variegated spaces of the area, including Kasımpaşa, Tarlabaşı and Galatasaray. Utilizing Ottoman state documentation, local school reports and contemporary descriptions and memoirs produced by the inhabitants of the city, this study contributes to the existing scholarship by incorporating the human element and a social perspective into examinations of the urban development of modern Istanbul. On a broader level, the article suggests that in the context of the rapid and drastic transformation which Istanbul is experiencing in its cityscape today, we need to look more closely at the origins of this phenomenon, particularly with an eye to the social stratification that came into being in the late Ottoman period.
Scales Thresholds and Dilemmas of Housing Transformations in Istanbul
Emine Görgül, (2022). Istanbul During the Glorious Thirty: Mobilization of the Middle-Class and Emergence of Motorways as Tools for Re-Shaping the Society and the Littoral Periphery. In N.Ü.Gülmez A.D. Işıkkaya (eds.) Scales Thresholds and Dilemmas of Housing Transformations in Istanbul, Peter Lang2022 •
Indeed, both the Truman Doctrine and the establishment of the Marshall economic aid program for the beneficial alliances of the US were the fundamental acts that were not only shaping this polarization in the global realm (i.e., the birth of NATO and the Warsaw Pact) but also boosting the economies and production systems of the alliance countries. Nevertheless, they also influenced the policies of architecture, urbanism, engineering, and infrastructure webs. Being a member of NATO, Turkey was also a recipient of the Marshall economic aid and the pursuer of liberal economic policies. Thus, the 1950s also signaled the epoch when Turkish society's socio-economic transformation was highly influenced by American culture. Hence the modernization of Turkish society almost became the Americanization of the nation (Adalet, 2018; Gürel, 2019). Again, following the transatlantic impact, the production of both the public sphere and the construction of the welfare state was actualized through the ways and means of the architectural realm. In light of emerging policies in the 1950s Turkish socio-political scene, this chapter aims to discuss how the mobility-based urban development policies of the DP-Democrat Party in the mid-century re-shaped the urban periphery, and significantly the littoral developments. So, while focusing on the drastic impetus of these macro-strategies in the re-organization of the society as well the city of Istanbul (Akpınar, 2010a), the chapter aims to decipher the littoral transformation of the city via examining the emergence of novel dwelling sites for summer housing and leisure spaces -like beach clubs and sea-resorts or hybrid leisure accommodations like KİT- Public Economic Enterprises' summer camps or holiday complexes-. In this scope, the two major inter-city motorways, the coastal roads along the waterfront and the European transit road D100 are taken as reference lanes in tracing the spatial and socio-political transformation. More specifically, the southern coastal line of the city, both on the south-east axis of Maltepe, Kartal, Dragos, Tuzla, Bayramoğlu, İzmit axis, and on the south-west axis of Çekmece, Avcılar, Güzelce, Silivri, Tekirdağ are the spotlighted destinations revealed. Besides, the impact of the mobility policies both on the modernization of the society and the middle class also constitutes the complementary discussion of this chapter. In other words, by developing a multiple-reading based on Istanbul's transforming urban condition between the 1950s and the 1970s, this chapter scrutinizes the spatial-political impact of the new motorways as political instruments of both the liberalist policies of the time and the state's apparatus in re-shaping the urban realm of Istanbul. On the meta-level, the chapter investigates how these infrastructures work as state apparatuses to re-position Turkey in alliance with American politics and fuel the consumerist policies as a part of the dolce-vita welfare state processes. Besides, on the mezzo scale, the chapter investigates how these infrastructure projects steered the urban planning policies for population growth and expanding land use. In addition, the triggering capacities of infrastructural growth were also dismantled following both the formation of urban sprawl areas and the emergence of the summer houses / secondary housing phenomenon. Accordingly, the re-defined dialectics of center-periphery, labor, and leisure tensions are opened into a discussion. Finally, on the micro-level of the citizens' realm, this chapter argues how the consequences of mobilization and motorway infrastructures contributed to the modernization of the individual. In this respect, the transformation of mid-century Turkish society is discussed concerning the transfıguring metropolitan life via the introduction of novel outdoor leisure spaces, urban mobility, and car ownership and mapping the driveways out from the city.
Palgrave Macmillan
European Istanbul and Its Enemies: Istanbul’s Working Class as the Constitutive Outside of the Modern/ European Istanbul. 2013: 217-233.2016 •
2008 •
edu.tr Immaterial Dimensions of the Right to the City: The Case of Istanbul’s Derbent Neighborhood in the Urban Transformation Process
PLAN-55264-RESEARCH_ARTICLE-AKSUMER.pdf edu.tr Immaterial Dimensions of the Right to the City: The Case of Istanbul’s Derbent Neighborhood in the Urban Transformation Process2018 •
The main objective of this article was to discuss the concept of the right to the city using the example of a gecekondu settlement, sometimes referred to as a squatters' neighborhood or a slum, that is part of a transformation project. The article primarily emphasizes the importance of the immaterial and empirical dimensions of the concept of the right to the city. Within this context, the theoretical part of the article is based on the Lefebvrian concept of the right to the city, which may be explained as the right to live anywhere one wishes to live and/or to decide one's own future. Starting from this point, a study of Istanbul's Derbent neighborhood , a gecekondu neighborhood undergoing an urban transformation process, was conducted. The goal was to seek tangible information on how the inhabitants of the gecekondu neighborhood were currently living and how they wish to live in the future. Additionally, how the urban transformation process is progressing in the opposite direction for this area is illustrated. The findings revealed that Gecekondu inhabitants have a strong sentiment of belonging to the place. They are emotionally attached to the location and to their neighbors. These emotional, intangible, and invisible dimensions of place attachment are very important components of the right to the city. ÖZ Bu makalenin temel amacı, kent hakkı kavramını kentsel dönüşüm tehdidi altındaki bir gecekondu mahallesi üzerinden tartışmaktır. Makale, temel olarak kavramın materyal olmayan, ampirik bo-yutlarının altını çizmektedir. Bu bağlam içinde makalenin teorik kısmında Lefebvre'in ortaya attığı, bireyin istediği yerde yaşama ve kendi geleceğine karar verme hakkı olarak da anlaşılabilecek kent hakkı kavramı tartışılacaktır. Bu noktadan hareketle, kentsel dönüşüm tehdidini deneyimleyen İstanbul Derbent mahallesinde bir araştırma yapılmıştır. Bundaki amacımız, gecekondu mahallesindeki insanların nasıl yaşadıklarını ve gelecekte nasıl yaşamak istediklerini araştırmaktı. Buna ek ola-rak bu makale, mevcut kentsel dönüşüm ihtimalinin mahalledeki-lerin taleplerinin aksi yönde işlediğini göstermeyi amaçlamaktadır. Dolayısıyla makale iki temel izleğe sahiptir. Öncelikle, Derbent mahallesinde yaşayanların nasıl bir hayat tarzına sahip olduğu anlaşılmaya çalışılacak, ikinci olarak mahalle sakinlerin gelecekte nasıl bir mahalle hayal ettikleri aktarılacaktır. Bulgular, mahalle sakinlerinin çok güçlü bir mekansal aidiyet hissine sahip oldukla-rını göstermektedir. Saha araştırması tespitlerimize göre Mahalle sakinleri mekâna ve komşularına duygusal bağlılık içindeler. Biz de bu makalede, mekâna bağlılığın bu duygusal boyutlarının kent hakkının çok önemli birer parçası olduğunu tartışmaya açıyoruz. 1 Gecekondu is the common and particular name of informally and autonomously built houses in Turkey. These buildings started to be built in the 50s and they are comparable to favelas in Brazil or bidonvilles in France; but these structures create neighbourhoods and even big townships. In the 2000s, there are also many gecekondu neighbourhoods all over Turkey. Gecekondu settlements are also known to build a kind of " urban social movement " in cities. For further details: ERDER Sema, " Kentsel Gelişme ve Kentsel Hareketler: Gecekondu Hareketler " , Kent, Yerel Siyaset ve Demokrasi, İstanbul, Demokrasi Kitaplığı, 1998, s.293-309. Jean François Pérouse, " Les tribulations du terme de gecekondu (1947 – 2004): une lente perte de substance. Pour une clarification terminologique. " European Journal of Turkish Studies, sayı 1-Gecekondu, Web: http://www.ejts.org/document117.htmlart
2011 •
This article discusses the role of squatters in the commodification of urban space in Turkey since the 1960s. Although squatting until the early 1980s was regarded as the expression of the demands of rural-to-urban migrants for their citizenship rights, early migrants eventually built multistorey buildings on the plots they occupied and rented the extra space to late migrants. Thus, squatting as ‘self-help put into practice’ became a major mechanism of commodification of urban land in Turkey. The commodification brought about significant antagonism between early migrants/new petty bourgeois and late migrants/new working class, as the latter became the tenants of the former. This division in working-class neighbourhoods is mostly invisible to the current literature. However, if this historical transformation is conceptualised as the ‘enclosure of urban space’, contradictions among different segments of squatter communities can be analysed in a comparative manner.
2020 •
This paper aims to examine the processes of gentrification from a somewhat different point of view. It focuses on 'renovation' and 'regeneration projects', as well as the gentrification concept with regard to urban policies that have particularly enriched the holders of capital in the historic neighbourhoods of Istanbul. Gentrification, happening alongside with renovation and regeneration, reveals significant problems in the social structure of the city such as displacement, social polarization, social inequality and damage to the historical environment. This paper contributes to the expansion of the understanding of gentrification concept with a case study that is outside the scope of 'usual suspects', while theorizing the role of the Turkish state during urban transformation processes through the everyday struggles and conflicts that unfold on the ground.
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